Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.

This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Friday, July 15, 2011

WASHINGTON -- As negotiations continue over raising the debt limit, Republican leaders are at odds with their own base, amid reports that their electoral coalition is breaking down. Public polling data illustrating the growing importance of the Tea Party vividly depicts the intra-party split and demonstrates the pressure Republican leaders now face.

Many national media polls now track the number of Americans who consider themselves Tea Party "supporters." As shown below, most now find between 25 and 30 percent of respondents fall into that category, with no consistent trend over the last year.

It’s a tactic that’s been in use for years: Sell a house to someone at an inflated price, but offer the buyer an incentive to take it -- like a few thousand dollars in cash back.

This maneuver puts extra money in the homeowner’s pocket. But it can make her more likely to experience foreclosure down the line, according to a new report. And because it involves buyers and sellers transferring money without informing the lender -- and exposing the lender to risk they don’t know about -- it’s also a form of mortgage fraud, and therefore illegal.

As hackers expose widespread cybersecurity lapses and heighten fears about defending critical infrastructure from attack, one proposed solution has started gaining traction: Rather than attempt to tighten security on the modern Internet, it suggests creating an entirely new one.

Earlier this month, former CIA Director Michael Hayden became the latest figure in Washington to call for a separate, secure Internet to shield vital systems like the power grid from cyber-attacks. The new commander of the military's cyberwar operations, Gen. Keith Alexander, has also endorsed the idea.

WASHINGTON -- A top Obama administration official on Thursday questioned the scope of the state and federal investigations into alleged mortgage abuses and "illegal" foreclosures perpetrated by the nation's largest mortgage companies, marking the first time a senior White House official publicly broke ranks with the administration over the issue and raising fresh questions about the wisdom of the government's rush to settle with the firms.

Elizabeth Warren, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, told a congressional panel that government agencies may not have sufficiently investigated claims that borrowers' homes were illegally seized by banks such as JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial.

As the partisan fight over the debt ceiling approached the August 2 deadline, President Obama presented Republicans with what, at almost any other time in recent history, would be seen as a conservative’s dream: $4 trillion in spending cuts over ten years, and the offer to restructure core pieces of the Democratic legacy, including Social Security and Medicare. GOP House Speaker John Boehner walked away from the deal not because the cuts weren’t steep enough but because they would be achieved, in part, through tax increases on hedge-fund managers, private jet owners and oil and gas companies.

The Republicans have once again shown themselves to be a party, to paraphrase Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, of the 1 percent, by the 1 percent, for the 1 percent. It is a party that accepts no new taxes, no closing of loopholes, no crackdowns on overseas tax havens and no increase in corporate tax rates, even as the biggest corporations pay little or no taxes on billions in profits. It is a party that embraces savage cuts in the social safety net but then draws a line in the sand to protect the wealthy. To Republicans, shared sacrifice is anathema. Now, as before, the global economy may be their victim.

In the heat of Wisconsin’s brutal battle over Governor Scott Walker’s assaults on unions, local democracy, public education and social services, one of his closest allies suddenly shifted direction. State Representative Robin Vos, Republican co-chair of the powerful Legislative Joint Finance Committee, determined that making it harder for college students, seniors and low-income citizens to vote was an immediate legislative priority, and pressed lawmakers to focus on enacting one of the most restrictive voter ID laws in the nation.

As ALEC’s chair for Wisconsin, Vos was doing what was expected of him. Enacting burdensome photo ID or proof of citizenship requirements has long been an ALEC priority. ALEC and its sponsors have an enduring mission to pass laws that would make it harder for millions of Americans to vote, impose barriers to direct democracy and let big money flow more freely into campaigns.

Jonathan Podhoretz reads a Quinnipiac poll showing that by a margin of 48-34, the public is going to blame Republicans and not Obama if we don't raise the debt ceiling, and joins the ranks of the Washington sellouts:

At some point, those who believe it will be acceptable to go to August 3 without an increase in the debt limit, as well as those who believe the politics favor the Republicans, are going to have to reckon with the fact that there are no data points supporting their beliefs. The way things are going, if August 2 comes and goes without an agreement, there will be a worldwide panic that would have catastrophic immediate consequences in the equity markets. And when Obama says, "I warned and warned and warned and they didn't listen," any attempt to offer a counterargument is going to sound very hollow.

I know I'm beating a dead horse at this point, but I continue to be mystified by what the base, the activists, and the politicians who are pushing the "no new revenue" stance hope to accomplish.

The climate problem has moved from the abstract to the very real in the last 18 months. Instead of charts and graphs about what will happen someday, we've got real-time video: first Russia burning, then Texas and Arizona on fire. First Pakistan suffered a deluge, then Queensland, Australia, went underwater, and this spring and summer, it's the Midwest that's flooding at historic levels.

The year 2010 saw the lowest volume of Arctic ice since scientists started to measure, more rainfall on land than any year in recorded history, and the lowest barometric pressure ever registered in the continental United States. Measured on a planetary scale, 2010 tied 2005 as the warmest year in history. Jeff Masters, probably the world's most widely read meteorologist, calculated that the year featured the most extreme weather since at least 1816, when a giant volcano blew its top.

So, there's this company called Omega Protein, and it seems intent on catching as much as it possibly can of an obscure, tiny, practically inedible fish called the Atlantic menhaden.

From Omega Protein's perspective, hoovering up menhaden like they're dust bunnies is a great idea. The company's entire business model hinges on transforming the oily fish into everything from livestock feed to omega-3 pills for people. In fact, it owns a monopoly on Atlantic menhaden fishing and processing—and has been doing just that for years. The stock market values Omega Protein at a cool quarter-billion dollars.

Following last week's verdict in the Jamie Leigh Jones rape case, is the law Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) pushed through Congress in her name now in jeopardy?

Jones' shocking story of being drugged and gang-raped in Iraq by fellow KBR contractors formed the inspiration for the freshman senator's first major legislative victory in October 2009. By a vote of 68 to 30, the Senate approved Franken's measure barring the military from contracting with companies that force their employees to take legal complaints to mandatory arbitration—rather than a civil jury—in cases involving sexual assault. The law would prevent what happened to Jones, who was at first blocked from taking her rape allegations to court because of an arbitration clause in her employment contract with KBR.

WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans are rallying behind a long-shot bid for a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget. But they're divided over conservatives' efforts to demand its passage as their price for backing any increase in the government's borrowing limit.

Right in the middle of their brawl with President Barack Obama over extending the debt ceiling and hacking trillions from projected deficits, GOP leaders are forcing House and Senate debates next week over similar amendments requiring the budget to be balanced, starting no sooner than five years from now. Reflecting tea party clout, both measures would also sharply curb Congress' ability to raise taxes and spending.

THE CANADIAN PRESS -- MEDICINE HAT, Alta. - The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has ordered an engineering firm in southeastern Alberta to lock up its nuclear devices until it corrects what it calls safety deficiencies.

The commission says an inspector went to AR Geotechnical Engineering earlier this month and found radiation levels of workers not being ascertained, shipping dangerous goods without a transport document and not meeting the commitments documented within the company's safety program.

He says the company has a radiation protection program in place, but proper documentation was not completed, so they are now fixing that.

The firm provides geotechnical, environmental and material engineering services for south and central Alberta and Saskatchewan and the device is a portable gauge that measures the amount of water in soil.

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama gave lawmakers 24 to 36 hours to finalize the path forward for raising the debt ceiling during the latest high-stakes White House meeting on Thursday.

"It’s decision time," the president told attendees, according to the notes of a Democratic official. "We need concrete plans to move this forward."

As the Aug. 2 debt ceiling deadline approaches, Obama and congressional leadership from both parties met for their sixth straight day of talks. There were no verbal altercations between the president and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), as there had been the day before. In fact, multiple Democratic sources relayed that Cantor barely spoke.

"The meeting was mostly a presentation by the administration, so several participants didn't talk, including Cantor and McConnell," explained a senior Republican aide.

Instead, the attending parties went through the four or so options that remain on the table, with respect to resolving the ever-winding debt ceiling saga. The president again pushed leaders to consider the biggest package possible, one that includes trillions in spending cuts, entitlement reforms and added revenues to help round out the deal. As part of the package he also called for lawmakers to include an extension of unemployment insurance (offset by cuts elsewhere) and the payroll tax cut -- two of his top domestic priorities.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who earlier in the day had warned lawmakers that the government was "running out of time" to negotiate, again stressed to attendees the perils of not just failing to raise the debt ceiling but of not reducing the nation's deficit and debt. Office of Management and Budget committee chair Jacob Lew, along with top economic adviser Gene Sperling "walked through proposals for getting savings out of health care entitlement programs, tax expenditures and budget process changes," according to a Democratic official familiar with the talks.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), meanwhile, reiterated his position that the administration's approach was insufficient for resolving the nation's debt problem. "He continued to press the White House to get serious about reducing spending in a meaningful way," a Republican aide said.

If it all sounded familiar, it's because these are the exact same arguments each side has been making for days, if not weeks.

That said, while the broad approaches remain the same, Thursday's meetings did mark an end to the process in which both sides pinpointed specific, mutually agreed-to spending cuts -- a process that started with talks spearheaded by Vice President Joseph Biden. That, however, does leadership little good if there remains (as lawmakers predict) no path for passage in Congress. And as the president called a close to the meeting, he left an instruction for attendees to survey their caucus on Friday to see what was possible, politically.

THE CANADIAN PRESS — TORONTO - The Ontario Press Council is denying allegations of a "politically correct mentality" after Sun Media withdrew its membership from the provincial print-media watchdog.

Earlier in the week, Sun Media vice-president Glenn Garnett said the editorial direction of the chain's newspapers was "incompatible with a politically correct mentality" that informed the press council's decisions.

The Ontario Press Council investigates complaints about some of the largest newspapers in Canada, including the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star.

In a response letter sent Thursday, press council chairman Robert Elgie says the council goes to great lengths to make sure its conclusions are objective.

Elgie, who has been a member of the council for 10 years and its chairman for five, says he has never detected ideological motives behind the council's decisions.

He says the media watchdog does not entertain "frivolous" complaints.

"A much more frequent criticism is that the vast majority of claims received are rejected," says Elgie.

He adds that less than 10 per cent of the complaints the council receives result in a hearing, and, historically, only half of those claims referred to hearings are upheld.

The press council has for years overseen 37 dailies, including 27 Sun Media newspapers such as the Toronto Sun, the Kingston Whig-Standard and the London Free Press.

The council is primarily made up of members of the public, and also includes representatives of its member newspapers. Until this week, Sun Media staff were on the council.

Can we declare a moratorium on Canadian Schadenfreude over Rupert Murdoch and his British tabs? They deserve what they're getting and more. But it tends to conceal the mote in our own eye.

What mote is that? Jonathan Schell in the The Nation (and reprinted in the Star) says the Murdoch papers "replaced" the noble aims of journalism with "titillation and gossip." Try not to think of Canadian coverage of the royal tour last week when you read that, I dare you. It was all T&G all the time. The CBC was the worst and it lacks even the excuse of needing to maximize profits for shareholders. Now, with the royals departed, it's still hard to find much on CBC news.

What about the Murdochian impulse to control politics along a right-wing axis? Well, the National Post was clearly created in 1998 to push Canadian journalism rightward and has had smashing success. In last May's election, every daily in Canada, except the Star and the smallish Le Devoir, endorsed Stephen Harper. Even in the last U.K. election you didn't get such uniformity.

I repeat: In a pissing contest, the Murdoch tabs win. They piss farthest and foulest. But we're only talking quantity at that point.

I don't consider these traits a failure of "journalism" because I don't think of journalism as a kid going to school and taking exams. Schell says: "Journalism's essential role in a democracy is to enable people to fulfill their roles as citizens." How does he know -- did God tell him? I hate essential roles. They're usually moral one-upmanship.

Journalism is a mixed bag that includes Murdochs. It arose in the 1700s partly to help owners of printing presses offset their heavy investment. It gravitated to titillation and gossip because it's hard to find enough to put in a paper every day. Similar impulses led to political posturing. Freedom of the press was invented, said Canadian historian Harold Innis, to conceal the monopoly power of those who owned the presses. At most, as Gandhi said about Western civilization, it would be a good idea, worth achieving some day.

Journalism isn't an inherently virtuous activity like medicine or teaching, that can get distorted. It's more like government: it's there, probably won't go away, but can act in various directions, depending on lots of things. People have different motives and visions and there are always conflicting approaches.

Toronto's first mayor, William Lyon Mackenzie, was a newspaperman all his life. He got into it to give a voice to the "hardworking farmers and labourers," since none of the many other papers in the colony did so.

The Star is an interesting case. It was begun by striking newspaper workers in 1892 as an alternative to the five other Toronto dailies, and run for 50 years by "crusading" editor Joseph Atkinson. It may be the only paper anywhere with a specific set of goals, along the lines of social justice and equality, built right into its corporate legal structure. That's like acknowledging journalism is an area of moral contention, where values clash and are constructed, rather than some city on a hill that everyone pointlessly genuflects to. Of course even then, "the struggle continues," as they say, since verbalizing a set of values isn't the same thing as embodying them in your paper (or life) each day.

There was a redeeming moment for Canadian journalism in the week of the mote. His name is Kai Nagata. He's 24 and was CTV's eastern Canada reporter till he quit last Friday with a detailed explanation. He gave it a shot but it wasn't what he had in mind. He objected to the pressures to look a certain way on camera, the trivialization (he was especially disgusted by CBC's royals coverage) and the anti-social drift of Canadian politics. He'd hoped to make his contribution as a citizen but couldn't see it happening at CTV. He didn't know what would come next and had some fear, but will try to find a better route. He just wasn't willing to piss his life away in that kind of journalism.

That's what gives a person hope, not the (probably temporary) fall of the House of Murdoch.

The narrative of Canada's role in the Afghan civil war as told by the country's mainstream media is designed to lead readers and viewers to two inescapable conclusions:

First, that after 10 years, Canada's involvement in the conflict has come to a definitive end.

Second, that thanks to the efforts and sacrifices of Canada's troops, at least 157 of whom have died with scores more maimed physically and mentally, the West has triumphed unconditionally in Afghanistan.

Alas, the balance of probability is high that both these yarns are baloney.

It is equally likely that the people spinning these Afghan fairy tales know very well they are not true, and that they are designed principally to serve the political needs of the country's Conservative government.

Nevertheless, the tone of Canadian coverage of the Afghan war brooks no argument that these dubious conclusions are somehow the unchallengeable truth.

Consider a story in my local paper and many others across Canada on July 8. This tale by correspondent Matthew Fisher was distributed by Postmedia News, which it is fair to say has served as a trusty Sherpa to the Harper Government's line on Afghanistan, loyally humping the government's propaganda day after day all the way back to Canada from the Hindu Kush.

So begins this tale, with startling precision: "Canada's first war in more than half a century ended at 11:18 a.m. local time Thursday, about 300 metres away from where the first Canadian combat troops set foot in Kandahar on Jan. 19, 2002."

Alas, it cannot be said that Canada's involvement in this war was over by any definition by 11:19 a.m., or indeed that it likely will be until the day the last Western troops and their supporters are taken by helicopter off the roof of the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul … metaphorically speaking, that is.

For that matter, Canada's "combat role," technically defined, is not even over, as many of our troops will remain to assist with the handover of the occupied territory to more numerous U.S. soldiers.

Beyond that, the government of Stephen Harper, ever loyal to American imperial projects, foresees our troops remaining for a three-year hitch in a "training" capacity to bring the Afghan National Army to a point at which it can defend the regime of Afghan President Hamid Karzai (and its inevitable pro-American successors) on its own.

At least three things are wrong with this story. First, the frequent description of military "trainers" and "advisers" as non-combatants is largely fictional. Historically, so-called combat trainers frequently found themselves in the thick of the fiercest fighting, lest they lose credibility with their students. Notwithstanding its pacific protestations, it is unclear what the intentions of the Harper government are for the activities of Canadian advisers.

Second, even if our soldiers remain "behind the wire," as we have been repeatedly promised, there's no guarantee their "students" can be depended upon not to turn on them -- as the soldiers of the German Bundeswehr discovered to their horror last February. This is a civil war in which the West has intervened, after all, and the motives of many groups, including elements of the Afghan army, remain murky.

Third, it seems highly unlikely that the Karzai government, without popular support among the country's Pashtun majority (notwithstanding the president's ethnicity), can survive without Western mercenaries to prop it up, no matter how well trained the Afghan army is.

From any sensible military perspective, then, the meter continues to run on Canada's involvement in the Afghan war -- and a tariff will still to have to continue to be paid, both in blood and treasure.

The other part of the Afghan fairy story is the claim that has been drummed into our heads that Western troops in Afghanistan, including Canada's, have succeeded in defeating the Taliban in a set-piece campaign, as if the Talibs were the Wehrmacht and this was late 1944 in Europe.

Turning again to the gospel according to Matthew Fisher: "the coalition succeeded in pushing the enemy off the battlefield. This allowed Canadian, American and Afghan forces to move in among the local population to ensure their security and to assist them with economic development."

But the Taliban, as the military arm of the Pashtun people in a civil war, are an insurgency. As such, they do not wear uniforms or march behind brass bands into battles on open ground upon which they can be conveniently defeated.

They ebb and flow, arming roadside bombs at night, farming innocently by day, wisely never turning up for a battle in which they can be crushed by their better-armed foe. As Mao Zedong explained and the Taliban recently practised atop the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul and later in Kandahar: "The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue."

If Western troops do pull out of Afghanistan in meaningful numbers, Taliban activity can be expected to pick up. If Westerners flow back to protect their allies, they will seem to evanesce.

Indeed, a study by the Rand Corp., the U.S. military's think tank, has suggested that defeating the Taliban insurgency would take up to 600,000 troops and 14 years -- which is arguably beyond the financial and manpower capacity of the West's armed forces, not to mention the patience of voters in Western democracies, even this one.

This is why, as British Prime Minister David Cameron recently sensibly suggested, in the words of the Telegraph, "Afghanistan's long-term future lies in a negotiated settlement with the Taliban." He argued for the model that was used to entice the Irish Republican Army into a peaceful role in government in Northern Ireland in return for giving up its insurgency.

For even if its numbers are severely depleted, as may or may not be the case, the Taliban can continue almost forever to make trouble for the occupiers and their collaborators. And so even the brother of President Karzai, walled away in his Kandahar redoubt and protected by his Praetorian Guard, could not escape the long reach of the Taliban. To quote Fidel Castro, another old Commie revolutionary of whom the Taliban would likely not approve, "no cause will be lost while there is one revolutionary and there is one gun."

The true story of the Afghan war comes down to this: If the West cannot make an accommodation with the Pashtun people through the Taliban, the war will continue until the West is driven out. That may take a long time, and there may be a high cost, but it will happen.

"News stories" that tell you differently, or that claim Canada's involvement in this tragic conflict has now ended, are designed to advance a political program that has its roots closer to home than in the high dusty mountains of the Hindu Kush.

During their recent tour of Canada, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visited Blachford Lake Lodge on the traditional and unceded territory of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation. The July 5 stopover began with demonstrations by the 1st Canadian Rangers Patrol Group, composed mainly of Inuit members.

From there, the royals began a tour of Dechinta Bush University Centre for Research and Learning. Dechinta is a post-secondary education initiative providing Indigenous and non-Indigenous students with much-needed opportunities to take university-accredited courses developed in the North, led by Northern experts, and focused on the land as the primary teacher.

But more than that, Dechinta provides an educational setting committed to decolonization and Indigenous self-determination. At Dechinta, one doesn't just learn about decolonization, Dechinta is a practice of decolonization.

The royal visit began with a lesson in several Dene languages. Dechinta then engaged the couple in Dene practices including preparation of caribou meat, smoking fish, use of medicinal plants, moosehide tanning, and beading.

These practices were portrayed by the media as arts and crafts. What the coverage didn't communicate is that Dechinta participants explained to the royal couple how these activities play a key role in learning about, and engaging in, decolonization. As colonialism has displaced Indigenous peoples from their land, these activities help reconstitute students political, social and economic relations to that land.

The royal visit then moved into a governance circle around a fire, where students and instructors talked about the importance and impacts of Dechinta's land-based pedagogy as a means of social transformation. Glen Coulthard, a member of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation and a professor of First Nations Studies and Political Science at the University of British Columbia, welcomed the royal couple. Their visit coincided with the course "'Our Land, Our Life': Dene Self-Determination in Theory and in Practice." Coulthard explained that the major aims of the course were to explore Dene political history, develop a concrete understanding of the historical and contemporary character of settler-colonial rule in Canada, and confront the violent and destructive effects Indigenous peoples experience as a result of colonial racism and land dispossession.

The course investigates the strategies through which the colonial state seeks to secure economic and legal certainty to Indigenous lands to exploit both people and natural resources. As dispossessing Indigenous peoples of their land is integral to the settler-colonial project, developing an understanding of what constitutes decolonization cannot occur without on-the-land learning.

Coulthard's course is part of Dechinta's core curriculum, complimented by courses in sustainable community development, health and wellness, communications and research methods Coulthard was followed by program alumnus Mason Mantla, a member of the Tlicho Nation, who described his Dechinta experience as providing his life with direction, imbuing him with a positive identity and bridging the gap between university education and land-based learning. To conclude, Swampy Cree student Mandee McDonald spoke to the current set of vastly unequal political, economic, and social relations that govern the world. She described the difficult process of coming to terms with the individual and collective effects of neo-colonial rule. McDonald said Dechinta provides a safe space to develop a critical understanding of the reality facing Indigenous communities and to explore and practice an alternate vision of the future.

These presentations were followed by gifts for the royal couple. The Prince was given a cartridge bag and the Duchess a caribou hide clutch with porcupine beaded fringe. These gifts were made by students at Dechinta. Dene political activist and spiritual leader Francois Paulette then gave a star blanket and a documentary film on the environmentally destructive effects of the Alberta Tar Sands, which are upstream from Denendeh watersheds.

Finally, the Dechinta program gave a hand-woven ash backpack containing a selection of readings from the program. This was followed by a group discussion where most students had a chance to speak further about issues of settlercolonialism, Indigenous self-determination and the necessity of land-based higher education in the North. After the governance circle, the royal couple joined Paulette aboard a canoe to paddle to a nearby island for a dinner of locally harvested foods.

In reading about this experience in the media, Dechinta students were surprised to find Paulette labeled simply as a "guide" and "village elder." Considering Paulette's political significance in the North, this characterization was seen by students as a racist affront. Among other achievements, Paulette's name is attached to the watershed case Paulette et al., v. The Queen (1976), in which the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories ruled that historical evidence suggested the Dene and Metis signatories of Treaties 8 and 11 did not consent to "cede, release and surrender" their Aboriginal title through the signing of treaty.

The dynamic of inviting prominent members of the British monarchy to a place committed to decolonization was not lost on anyone at Dechinta. According to program leaders Kyla Kakfwi Scott and Erin Freeland Ballantyne, the royal couple was invited in part to reach an international audience to promote Dechinta as a program that provides students with a critical understanding of Northern needs and aspirations. They felt hosting the royals on Dene territory was an exercise in self-determination that might provide a critical opportunity to establish dialogue between the direct descendents of both Dene and the British Crown signatories to Treaties 8 and 11.

This meeting was a chance to establish dialogue between these two parties about the importance of respecting the nation- to-nation relationship between the Dene and the Crown in Right of Canada. To leave the relationship as it stands would be to legitimize Canada's illegitimate assertion of sovereignty over Indigenous peoples and territories -- a view Dechinta challenges through rigorous research and scholarship.

According to Dechinta students, the visit was a chance to get out the message that Canada has yet to seriously address the colonial violence Indigenous communities continue to experience on a daily basis. It is a violence lived by Indigenous communities as a result of not only land dispossession but also through an imposition of Euro- American values and lifeways. Education was an important vehicle of the colonial project.

Dechinta believes land-based education can also provide a site for self determination. The hope was that the message being advocated by Dechinta would shine during the royal visit and it wouldn't collapse practices of Indigenous governance and self determination into a display of 'arts and crafts'. However, once the event was over and media reports hit the airwaves, it became apparent this wasn't the case.

While this article may not correct the misinterpretation of the event propagated by the media, at least some record will exist of its true intent.

Dechinta Bush University Centre for Research and Learning is a northern-led initiative to deliver land-based, university credited educational experiences. Led by experts, elders, professors and northern leaders, Dechinta seeks to engage northern and southern youth in transformative curricula based on the cutting-edge needs of Canada's North.

“When I have something to say, I’ll tell you,” Stephen Harper said at one of his first news conferences as Prime Minister in 2006. Very well then. What has he been telling us since he won a majority on May 2?

In two important speeches and an interview with my boss at this magazine, Harper has given important hints, and left open important questions, about his plans for the country. A surprising amount of what he’s said has to do with foreign policy.

I don’t want to overstate this. In two speeches to Conservative partisans, at the party’s Ottawa convention on June 10, and again at the Calgary Stampede on July 9, Harper spoke first about more familiar subjects: his party’s electoral success and the economy. But Canada’s place in the world has grown as a theme until these days foreign policy is one of Harper’s big applause lines. He clearly sees it as a way to sharpen the contrast between his party and its opponents, to Conservatives’ advantage.

That hasn’t always been the case. Before the 2006 election, foreign diplomats in Ottawa couldn’t get a meeting with Harper or any trusted lieutenant. He didn’t travel much.

This is common enough among political leaders. Very soon the realities of the job caught up. Here’s how Harper described it a couple of weeks ago in his interview with Ken Whyte: “Since coming to office—in fact since becoming Prime Minister—the thing that’s probably struck me the most in terms of my previous expectations—I don’t even know what my expectations were—is not just how important foreign affairs/foreign relations is, but in fact that it’s become almost everything.” Canada’s economy is obviously strapped into the global roller coaster, but our prosperity depends on trade, our security starts far from our shores, and so on.

At first Harper turned to international tasks from a sense of duty. What’s new is the enthusiasm. “Re-equipping the military is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to making Canada a meaningful contributor in the world,” he told the Conservative convention in Ottawa. “We also have a purpose. And that purpose is no longer just to go along and get along with everyone else’s agenda. It is no longer to please every dictator with a vote at the United Nations. And I confess that I don’t know why past attempts to do so were ever thought to be in Canada’s national interest.”

Hooray, a chance to caricature the Liberal record. Indeed, if you’re looking for an explanation for Harper’s increasing rhetorical reliance on foreign affairs, it may lie in this extract from earlier in the Ottawa convention speech. “Within 100 sitting days of this majority Parliament, as promised, we shall combine our outstanding criminal justice bills—measures the opposition has been blocking in some cases for years. We will put them into comprehensive legislation and we will pass them.”

If that happens, it won’t be an unalloyed triumph for the Conservatives. Politicians like to have something to fight against. Harper got a lot of mileage out of his frequent displays of frustration at the opposition for blocking his crime bills. Even when the opposition parties weren’t blocking his crime bills. Often Harper’s own decisions to prorogue Parliament killed his bills before they could be passed. But the opposition was handy to blame.

If he gets that omnibus bill passed, Harper will need something else to fight against. The opposition is a bit of a toothless foe these days. The world will make an excellent substitute enemy. “We are living in a world in which, after decades of stable, sometimes stagnant international relationships, change is the new constant,” he told the Ottawa convention. “New forces are coming to the fore. Some we will be pleased to work with. Some we must resist.”

This is, more or less, the “sea of troubles” speech Harper repeated at every stop in the spring election campaign. The argument contributed mightily to building voter support for a stronger Conservative government. Might as well keep making it.

In his Maclean’s interview, Harper discussed “the kind of values we have in the world: freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law.” As a rule of thumb, he added, “those societies that promote those values tend to share our interests, and those that do not tend to, on occasion, if not frequently, become threats to us.”

He seems preoccupied with threats. In Ottawa and again in Calgary there was an odd passage about Canada’s future. “Friends, in a few short years, we will celebrate our 150th anniversary as a united country. If, in 50 more years, we wish our descendants to celebrate Canada’s 200th anniversary, then we must be all we can be in the world today.”

“If?” What’s the 50-year challenge to Canada’s very survival?

“We know there are challenges to us,” he told Maclean’s. “The most obvious is terrorism, Islamic extremist terrorism. We know that’s a big one globally. We also know, though, the world is becoming more complex, and the ability of our most important allies, and most importantly the United States, to single-handedly shape outcomes and protect our interests, has been diminishing, and so I’m saying we have to be prepared to contribute more.”

This is, to say the least, a bold bunch of claims. Canada’s survival is not assured; our allies, including even the United States, are less able to defend it; Canada has to do more. Just talk? Harper rarely says the same thing three times in a month unless he’s been thinking about it a lot. But he still has a lot of explaining to do.

This week the Center for Media and Democracy released 800 model bills, legislation that is straight out of the corporate playbook and drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council. The group’s membership includes both state lawmakers and corporate executives who gather behind closed doors to discuss and vote on draft legislation. ALEC has come under increasing scrutiny in recent months for its role in crafting bills to attack worker rights, to roll back environmental regulations, privatize education, deregulate major industries and pass voter ID laws. Thanks to ALEC, at least a dozen states have recently adopted a nearly identical resolution asking Congress to compel the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to stop regulating carbon emissions. We are joined by Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media Democracy.

Discussion on a deficit reduction deal has stalled after five consecutive days of negotiations between Republicans and Democrats. In order to borrow beyond August 2, the United States must raise its $14.3 trillion debt ceiling. This week, Standard & Poor’s became the second of the major credit rating agencies to place U.S. debt under review, citing an increasing risk of a payment default. Republicans are pushing for massive spending cuts, many of which Obama has agreed to, even as Democrats say they want to raise taxes on corporations and wealthy households. We speak with Jeff Madrick, director of policy research at the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis at The New School and author of "Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present."

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford says there’s not enough work for the city’s employees while suggesting that labour costs are four times higher than they should be.

Mr. Ford discussed the prospect of layoffs if a staff buyout package fails to eliminate enough jobs in an interview Friday morning with the John Oakley Show on Talk Radio AM640.

“The last thing we want to do is lay off, Johnny, but when [labour] makes up 80 per cent of your budget, there’s a lot of gravy there, there’s a lot of people. Unfortunately, it’s just not enough work to go around,” he said.

After the announcement of a buyout package earlier this week, Mr. Ford said the city has “thousands” too many employees. His comments Friday suggest just how dramatically he believes the payroll should shrink.

“In business, the first thing you look at is the labour and your labour should be making up, you know, maximum 20 per cent. Not, well, we’re at 80 per cent. It’s just unheard of. So I think that taking a serious look at non-union and union employees and exactly what they’re doing and taking it from there.”

The buyout program promises to be the most ambitious in the city's history. Around 17,000 city workers will have until Sept. 9 to decide whether to opt in to a new voluntary separation program, taking a lump sum worth up to six months pay if they agree to leave the city’s employ.

During the election campaign, Mr. Ford pledged to reduce the city work force through attrition - not hiring freezes or layoffs. For every six employees that left the city’s employment due to retirement or other reasons, the city would replace only three, he said.

The Pentagon has unveiled a new cyber-strategy, declaring the Internet an operational theater of war. Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn unveiled the plan at the Pentagon

William Lynn: "Just as our military organizes to defend against hostile acts from land, air and sea, we must also be prepared to respond to hostile acts in cyberspace. Accordingly, the United States reserves the right, under the laws of armed conflict, to respond to serious cyber attacks with a proportional and justified military response at the time and place of our choosing."

The Harper government says it's successfully concluded an eighth round of free trade negotiations with the European Union and is on track to clinch a deal by 2012.

During discussions in Brussels this week, Canada and the 27-member country EU traded offers to open up their respective markets in the fields of goods and government purchasing.

International Trade Minister Ed Fast described the eighth round as having made “important progress” toward an agreement.

Canadians officials are declining to release details on what this country is offering the EU in terms of greater access to Canada's markets, saying public release right now would harm Ottawa's negotiating position.

Mr. Fast however hinted that Canada is prepared to offer the Europeans significant concessions, calling both sides' offers on goods and government purchasing “ambitious” in scope.

He tried to assure Canadians however that Ottawa will come away from the table with gains, rather than losses, for employees and businesses in Canada.

“These negotiations represent our most significant trade initiative since the North American Free Trade Agreement, and our government is vigorously defending Canada's interests to ensure that any agreement we sign benefits Canadian workers, businesses and their families,” Mr. Fast said in a prepared statement.

A Canada-EU joint economic study, released in October 2008, predicted that free trade agreement between the two jurisdictions could boost Canadian economic output by at least $12-billion annually and bring gains for the country's industries, from aerospace to wood products.

News International CEO Rebekah Brooks has resigned in the wake of the European media phone hacking scandal, saying that remaining in her post has made her the "focal point of the debate" and a distraction.

"At News International, we pride ourselves on setting the news agenda for the right reasons. Today we are leading the news for the wrong ones," Brooks wrote in an email to colleagues Friday that was released by News International.

"The reputation of the company we love so much, as well as the press freedoms we value so highly, are all at risk."

Brooks's resignations comes after days of mounting pressure from politicians and shareholders of Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper operations.

On Thursday, Murdoch, chairman of News Corp., and his son, James, changed their minds and said they would testify before a parliamentary panel probing the scandal over phone hacking that started with The News of the World, and forced Murdoch to withdraw a $12-billion US bid to assume full control of Britain’s biggest satellite broadcaster.

'Right and responsible action'

Brooks was editor of News of the World between 2000 and 2003, at the time of some of the hacking, but has said she knew nothing about it. She has been in charge of News International's four British newspapers since 2007.

"I have believed that the right and responsible action has been to lead us through the heat of the crisis. However, my desire to remain on the bridge has made me a focal point of the debate," she wrote to her colleagues Friday.

"This is now detracting attention from all our honest endeavours to fix the problems of the past."

Brooks, 43, said she needs to concentrate on "correcting the distortions and rebutting the allegations about my record as a journalist, an editor and executive."

She said her resignation gives her time to give her full co-operation to all future inquiries, police investigations and an appearance at the British parliamentary committee investigating the phone hacking allegations.